Today's News column: Trades are for optimists!

As you know, my column runs in the Detroit News on Tuesdays -- most of the time. Today is Wednesday. Here's the column, go forth and read. Then return.

The reason it had to run a day later is that the Tigers basically made the first draft irrelevant the second the trade was completed. I wrote a bit about Omar Infante, a bit about national experts throwing rumors around and to ignore them, noted the Tigers generally save their BIG trades for the offseason. That sort of thing. So yeah, definitely couldn't run that column. Note to self: Remember to expect the unexpected.

In today's piece, I tried to find a different angle to use on the trade for Anibal Sanchez and Omar Infante. So I went at it from the angle that trades are usually made expecting the best. Often times when a trade is announced, people try to dig up the worst. What if this player sucks in the AL? What if that prospect goes on to have a Hall of Fame career? (Insert only example ever used here.) What if the Tigers SOLD THE FARM SYSTEM for nothing? GMs obviously don't think like that. Dombrowski sees his team filling two holes that it needed to in order to go deep in the playoffs. The Marlins hope they've found their ace and starting catcher of the future.

Not every trade turns out well. Not every trade turns out awful. It's OK to find the sunshine from time to time.